AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Every bride needs a fancy dress,” she said. “And it’ll be a simple kind of fancy.”
He put his arm around her waist, and she cuddled into him again as Kyle and Bea moved down the aisle to chat with everyone.
Robin caught her attention and motioned that they could move from the tent where the ceremony had taken place to the dinner tent. Maddy stepped over to Susan and told her, and Bea’s mother did a stand-up job of mobilizing the guests.
Maddy and Ben joined the flow of people now moving to the dinner tent, and she took him to the head table.
“Do we have to have a formal dinner like this?” he asked. He shifted in his seat, because he didn’t like being the center of attention. Maybe hers, but that was all. He’d barely tolerated coming to dinner at the inn, and that had been a small affair with people he knew. Usually.
Now that they both lived in Five Island Cove, she saw him every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night. They both lived on Rocky Ridge, and he slept at the Coast Guard station a lot. When he wasn’t there, he stayed with Maddy, and joining their lives in holy matrimony would be easy.
“No,” she said. “No stuffy dinner. No head table.”
“Praise the heavens,” he muttered.
“Where do you want to get married?” she asked. “What will your mother want?”
“She won’t care,” he said. “She just wants me to settle down and be an ‘honest man.’” He rolled his eyes, but Maddy knew Ben loved his mother very much. He talked to her almost every day, and when he had time off, he usually went to Toronto to visit her.
“So maybe my backyard,” she said. “My house could host the dinner. And we can stay the first night in the Cliffside Inn and then jet across the ocean for an amazing European honeymoon.” She lifted her eyebrows, expecting Ben to scoff and say they wouldn’t be going to Europe on their honeymoon.
He scoffed. He said, “Europe? No. We need to go somewhere like Iceland or Belize.”
Maddy giggled as the guests continued to file into the tent and take seats at the tables set up there. Each boasted a large flower arrangement, with tall glass vases and blue, green, and white stones in them. All the chairs had been draped in bows, and the napkins matched them here as well as the ones they’d used for the ceremony.
Lights hung in the rafters of the tent, and flowers hung from every pole as well. With all of Robin’s friends and all of Maddy’s, the job hadn’t been too big or taken too long.
She reached for her goblet of water and took a small sip. “You realize Iceland and Belize are in opposite directions.”
“Depending on when we get married, we might want to go north or south,” Ben said.
“When do you want to get married?”
“Tomorrow?” he guessed, that bad-boy edge in his eyes again.
Maddy smiled, shook her head, and gave him a playful shove against his heartbeat. “Not tomorrow.”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “Soon, though, Mads. Right?” His gaze burned now, the way it did when he made love to her. “Soon.”
She wasn’t going to argue with him when he spoke in that voice and looked at her with those eyes. She nodded. “Yes, Ben. Soon.” She leaned closer to him, and he bent his head down so she could whisper in his ear. “I’m just waiting for that proper proposal, Captain Gorgeous.”
ChapterNine
Jean Shields bent over the sewing machine, the tiny T-shirt she’d been working on for Asher nearly finished. The baby monitor sat nearby, and she’d thought she’d heard him fuss. She glanced over to it, and the lights would vibrate and move across the walkie-talkie if he did.
They stayed still, and if he had made a noise, it was isolated; he hadn’t woken yet. She glanced at her phone, realizing that he shouldn’t be waking up from his nap yet. She finished the T-shirt, and she’d dress him in it before his mother came to pick him up.
Jean loved babysitting, and she’d considered putting her name out there to get more jobs. She tended to Asher for AJ and Matt when they needed her, and she often had Parker at the lighthouse too. He’d gone to New Jersey for the summer, and Jean already missed him. Sometimes Eloise would bring her girls or text to let Jean know Billie was coming to the lighthouse to go down to Seal Harbor with some friends.
That didn’t require Jean to babysit, and she dismissed the idea of taking on other jobs. She had her sewing lessons, and her Seafaring Girls lessons would start up again in July. She’d been planning those with Kristen, and she’d been perfecting a few new cookie recipes to try with the girls who came to the lighthouse for lessons in boat care, ocean navigation, water safety, and more.
“Babe,” Reuben called, and Jean looked up, startled. He rarely came back downstairs during the day, and he’d practically bellowed.
She got to her feet and went down the short hall to the kitchen. “Asher’s asleep.” She put her forefinger over her lips, noting how brightly he glowed. “What’s going on?”
“You’ve been sewing,” he said, the words rushing out of him. He held up his phone. “We got an email from Miranda. She said a birth mother has selected our adoption profile and wants to know more.”
Jean’s heart fell all the way to her stomach. “Are you kidding?” Her husband would never joke about this. He’d found her on the bathroom floor. He’d sobbed with her when they’d lost their baby. He’d been at her side for years as they’d tried to get pregnant.
